SAN JOSE – Worldwide sales of semiconductors reached $19.6 billion in April, up 8.1% from April 2005’s sales of $18.1 billion, the Semiconductor Industry Association reported today. SIA reported a nominal decline of 0.4% from March, when total sales were $19.7 billon.
 
“More intense competition led to a sequential decline of 6.1% in sales of microprocessors, offsetting modest growth in the rest of the microchip market,” said SIA president George Scalise. “Microprocessors are the largest single sector of the market, representing approximately 14% of total chip sales. Microprocessor sales are up nominally compared to April of 2005. The PC market remains strong, with unit sales of personal computers running 13 to 15% ahead of last year’s levels. DRAM sales grew by 3.7% sequentially and by 7.7% over April of 2005 – evidence that the end market remains strong.
 
“Sales of wireless handsets containing analog products, digital signal processors (DSPs), NOR flash, and optoelectronic devices continued to show healthy growth. Total analog sales were up by 23% year-on-year, while DSPs grew 16.1% from 2005 levels. NAND flash devices declined by 11.7% from March, but were up by nearly 25% year-on-year. Growing sales of medical electronics and industrial electronics, such as process control devices, are also contributing to strong growth of analog products. Sales of MP3 players continue to grow at a very robust rate of 50% per year. Application-specific devices for both automotive and wired communications applications showed double-digit year-on-year sales increases.
 
The overall market growth rate is slightly ahead of the SIA November forecast, which projected growth of 7.9%. SIA will issue an updated forecast on June 7.

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